1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention are directed to systems, methods, and computer program products for evaluating photographic performance, and more particularly to systems, methods, and computer program products for providing automatic generation of photographic performance metrics.
2. Description of Related Art
Retail photography studios, through which customers may obtain professionally-taken photographs, have existed for some time. Often, there is an expectation of a higher or different quality of photographs taken by professionals than might otherwise be produced without such professional help. This provides the motivation for utilizing a retail studio. As such, ensuring high quality photographs has always been a concern for retail photography studios.
Traditionally, the monitoring and improvement of photographic quality and performance has been a cumbersome process. Various evaluation methods have been used in the past and are still in use today. Some photographic companies have produced proof sheets, film, or video including a series of photographs from a given photography session. These images could be used to examine the performance of a photographer during a given session (e.g., the number of pictures taken with imperfect focus, the number of pictures taken with poor composition, etc.). Also, images from different sessions could be examined to determine any positive or negative tendencies in photographic performance, and to monitor improvement in technique. However, the manual review of images tends to be a labor intensive process, and as a result, this method provides only limited opportunity for systematically monitoring and/or improving photographic performance.
In more recent times, digital cameras and technology have proliferated in society. Users of digital cameras are free to take a great number of pictures in order to ultimately obtain just a few of acceptable quality with the rest being unused. The advent and growth of digital photography, with its inexpensive and forgiving nature, has increased the demands on professional photographers to offer exceptional quality, both in terms of image quality and customer service, in order to attract customers. There is a need, therefore, for a method and/or system that allows for monitoring and management of photographic performance. With the existence of chains of retail photography studios, there is also a need for such a system to allow for central management of distributed retail photography studio centers.